Brian Jordan and Steven Glezman purchased country club memberships, Rolex watches, and assault rifles.
They bought boxing gloves signed by Muhammad Ali, cruise ship vacations, airfare, a Larry Bird jersey, Mike Tyson-signed boxing shorts, a basketball signed by the 1992 Olympic “Dream Team,” an autographed Super Bowl football, a $546,135 house in Houston, and a $605,000, 17-acre ranch in Montgomery.
And they did it all on police officer salaries.
These spoils are now the subject of a forfeiture lawsuit, after a federal probe accused Jordan and Glezman of running an illegal off-shore gambling ring while still employed as officers in Houston’s PD.
Jordan and Glezman were suspended with pay in May, following a federal raid on their (lavish) Houston-area homes. The two retired shortly after their suspensions, before the conclusion of an internal investigation in which no charges were filed.
At the time, one police-watch blog speculated that the raid might have been over child pornography possession. But a new lawsuit by the U.S. attorney’s office in Plano, Texas accuses the two ex-cops of helping run a sports-betting site that raked in over $3.1 million in five years.
According to court documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle, Jordan and Glezman dodged Texas’s gambling ban through a network of front companies, a bank in Panama, a Barbados-based business partner who registered at least 600 domain names for the gambling ring, and at least one website registered in Costa Rica.
The sites, which allowed users to gamble on sports, targeted betters in the southern United States, specifically Texas, Florida, and California.
Both men have denied any involvement in the gambling scheme. But Timothy Large, the third man implicated in the federal probe, has admitted to earning an annual $200,000 to $300,000 for the past 10 years working as an illegal bookmaker. Jordan and Glezman allegedly posted similar earnings, depositing over $370,000 into shell accounts in 2012, the lawsuit claims.
The previous year, both men had earned just over $73,000 in salaries, records show.
The specifics of Jordan and Glezman’s alleged involvement are still unclear. The lawsuit accuses Jordan, Glezman, and Large of being “conspirators,” although all three have individually claimed to be innocent of the scheme.
“I wasn’t involved,” Jordan told the Dallas News. “That will all come out in the end.”
Jordan and Glezman spent a respective 23 and 20 years on the Houston police force, where they worked in the vice and burglary divisions.